Welcome to

XPERIENCE

Transforming students into global changemakers and the next generation of solutionists.

Three phases, one

XPERIENCE.

Xperience is a three-phase innovation journey where students define, solve, and ultimately eliminate real-world problems.

0
1
2
3
01

Horizons Challenge

Define the problem.

Students pitch innovative, student-sourced topics during NEXPLORE 2040. Winning topics are selected as the focus for the next phase, the Xperience Competition.

01

Xperience Competition

Solve the problem.

Over 15 months, student teams tackle the selected challenge, collaborating to develop and compete with their solutions, competing for the chance to transform their ideas into a venture with up to $2M in investment.

01

Launch Pad

Take the problem off the table.

Winning teams launch their ventures with significant backing, receiving up to $2M in funding. Students take on roles as the product team, earning both salaries and equity stakes.

xperience
benefits
xperience
benefits
xperience
benefits
$250K – $2M in startup funding
As part of a winning team, you can receive significant investments from the Xponential Fund, ranging from $250,000 to $2 million, to launch your new company.
>1 year of real work experience
Xperience creates immediate career pathways, allowing graduates to join their validated ventures full-time upon graduation.
Expert mentorship and networking
Receive 12-18 months of invaluable guidance and mentorship from a network of seasoned global CXOs (Xperts), fostering the stability, growth, and early success of your venture.
Founder's mindset
The program equips you with an entrepreneurial mindset and essential skills through real-world problem-solving and interdisciplinary collaboration, preparing you to tackle complex challenges as a founding team member.
Global impact
Contribute to meaningful community and global impact by aligning your solutions with real-world needs, driving scalable positive change.
Vedio Image
Play Button
another something category
365+
asdlfkajsdf lkj alksdjf als ja sldjfa sdjf asldjf laskdjf alskd jfa sdflkja slk
something category
68%
aslkdfjas fja iljl j laksj alk ja lksdfj asdfklj aklj aslkfj asldkj asdlfkjsa flkja sals kdfjas kljas lkjasd f
Take the Leap

Gain hands-on experience, build career-transforming skills, and create meaningful change.

What type of challenges does the competition focus on?  
What’s the commitment involved?  
How does funding work for winning teams?  
Do I need to have a business idea to apply?  
Having a program like xFoundry that interacts and touches on all the colleges in the university is very important.
Amitabh Varshney, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at University of Maryland
One thing that really makes Xperience unique is the interdisciplinarity. Because the teaching team is interdisciplinary, we're bringing lots of different perspectives to the students, but also the students are coming from all different disciplines.
Christina Hnatov
Educator at Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Through xFoundry, these students could work on these teams with students from across campus, with faculty from across campus and get these kinds of get this kind of interdisciplinary thinking, get used to doing it.
Rafael Lorente
Dean, Philip Merrill College of Journalism at University of Maryland
I joined Xperience because I wanted to tackle a problem that's a little bit different from my research project and then be able to interact with students within different disciplines. Really, I want to be able to train my skill set outside of the skills that I'm learning in my current lab right now in the science industry.
Aolani Perry '28
Ph.D. Molecular and Cell Biology at University of Maryland
We're actually teaching students not just the skills to come up with different solutions, but the skill set to like develop the problem solving process, the ideation, allowing those like wild ideas for brainstorming, thinking, and not just dismissing things that maybe seem too hard for us to accomplish.
Martha Wang, Ph.D.
Assistant Director at Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices
Subtract